


Worry

by Lani



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, No romo, Spoilers for Ep 55, Traveler POV, it's impossible not to love Jester, maybe the real dad was the deity we worshiped along the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-25 22:51:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lani/pseuds/Lani
Summary: The Traveler reflects on one of his clerics and makes an odd discovery about himself.





	Worry

_'I’m proud of you…’_

His voice glinted in the dark, and blinked out. A young cleric knelt over the body of the firbolg, a gaunt creature that had spilled onto the cave floor like a handful of charred bones. A shudder, a gasp. Life, again. In the silence a heart began to beat. The world hurried to rush back in, filling the vacuum it had left for the miracle. Noise rose up: footsteps, groans and panting whispers. The scene picked up pace and Jester’s concentration broke. She turned to smile at her friend. 

The Traveler watched her fade from view. How easily she slipped from his grasp, receded back into the embrace of her companions. In a moment she was out of reach, left to her own devices. She would call him when she needed his aid again. He wasn’t concerned. He was listening for her voice but he wasn’t concerned. She was out of sight which meant she was out of mind. 

There were other matters to tend to, other believers to encourage, entertain, egg on. He turned as if to look through a hundred windows, each leading to a different room, a different life. He watched the turning kaleidoscope and let each new light fall upon his hooded face, warm him to the touch. A nudge here, a whisper there. The facets shifted and glittered, rearranged themselves and splintered apart. 

This was the chaos he wanted to see in the world. The Traveler had grown so weary and bored of his old life, the eternal dusk. Exandria was full of life and color and mischievous souls that were so much like his own. Each one was a different spark in the dark, dancing by like fireflies. He watched them dip and pirouette, delighting in the voices that giggled in his ears, telling him stories. And among the swirling patterns, a small sapphire gleamed back at him, stilling his laughter.

His eyes wandered to her again. Jester was sleeping now. He could feel the ache in her bones, her tired muscles. She was hugging her pets to herself, curled up against the back of a human woman she seemed to care for a great deal. The Traveler hummed to himself as he looked the tiefling over. He had watched her grow up, a little bluebird in a golden cage, beating her wings against the bars. She had been the perfect candidate for his plans, a little child whose head he could fill with wonder and foolery. It had been so easy to befriend her, play at paintings with her, teach her tricks and trades. He had done it a hundred times before.

But now that he was looking at her, through the lens of a distant dream she would not recall in the morning, he felt his fluttering excitement calm and settle. It felt warm and heavy, like a sun-heated stone in his palm. Jester. He had told her she had made him proud, and for once it truly hit him, that this was not just not a lie, but the truth. Which were two very different things. 

Tonight had been another close call for her, hadn’t it? Adventures were dangerous. That was par for the course and he had no qualms about sending her out into the world, about how he had pulled the strings just so that she had had nowhere else to go but away and away, following the winding path out the door. How masterful of him, how clever. But next to the excitement and pride another, third, alien, feeling was taking root. It was a bitter feeling, somewhere at the back of his throat. It started tingling in the depths of his chest whenever her prayers became frantic, when her prayers stopped.

Jester shivered, not from the cold but from a new dream, a dream about fire. The Traveler slid back into the cave and waved a spectral hand over her form so that her cape tucked itself tighter around her. 

Worry, that was the word. It gnawed at the back of his brainstem like a bored dog. Worry demanded attention. He could have lost her, her and all her laughter, her joy for life, her bravery and love. Again and again and again he could have lost her. What was there to do about worry?

This would complicate things.


End file.
